To some Artificial Intelligence (AI) may seem like a solely sci-fi concept, but in truth it is already becoming reality in ways we may not realise, with its application within the facilities management function already in use. Aside from virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana, which have already pervaded our day-to-day lives, other forms of AI are steadily making inroads into all sectors, and FM is no exception. Whether it is the use of smart floor sweepers or robot receptionists, AI is one fast-evolving concept that a growing number believe has the potential to not only overhaul the FM industry but the entire professional environment. According to our recent Twitter poll on the subject, just over half of respondents believe that AI is an opportunity to increase their organisation's profit margins. Does this indicate that some in the FM sector already see the potential to save money on staffing costs as robots and machines take over more manual FM services as some of the more sensationalist headlines suggest?

Last year, Swedbank in Sweden "hired" Nina, a dynamo of a company rep. Nina is adept at interacting with customers on the bank's website, answering their questions and routing them to the right human representative. She typically engages in some 45,000 conversations a month and successfully answers eight out of 10 inquiries. Not only can Nina understand and mimic human speech, she can also use data to make connections and recommendations. "Nina's brain for Swedbank is educated on all things Swedbank," says Robert Weideman, EVP and GM of the enterprise division at Nuance Communications, which created Nina.

Can you recognise when someone is unwell just by studying their face? Understanding expressions can help doctors improve their diagnoses, but it's a difficult skill to practise. So a group of engineers have made a tool for training clinicians: a robot that can express pain. Many doctors already use robotic patient simulators in their training to practise procedures and test their diagnostic abilities. "These robots can bleed, breathe and react to medication," says Laurel Riek at the University of California, San Diego.

Beginning in 2006 beekeepers became aware that their honeybee populations were dying off at increasingly rapid rates. Scientists are also concerned about the dwindling populations of monarch butterflies. Researchers have been scrambling to come up with explanations and an effective strategy to save both insects or replicate their pollination functions in agriculture. Although the Plan Bee drones pictured above are just one SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) student's concept for how a swarm of drones could handle pollinating an indoor crop, scientists are considering different options for dealing with the crisis, using modern technology to replace living bees with robotic ones.Researchers from the Wyss Institute and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard introduced the first RoboBees in 2013, and other scientists around the world have been researching and designing their solutions ever since. Honeybees pollinate almost a third of all the food we consume and, in the U.S., account for more than $15 billion worth of crops every year.

These days, talking to a bot is commonplace. Think Siri, or your chatty banking app. But you wouldn't talk to your toaster like you talk to a friend -- unless your toaster had a great sense of humor. These days, talking to a bot is commonplace. Think Siri, or your chatty banking app.

Fresh advancements in IT can target a number of factors, these may include fluidity and navigation, storage and security, costs and resources, aesthetics and customer engagement - broadly speaking, making things much better. Yet with such advancements, comes a great responsibility, not only for the end-consumer adopting new tech but the IT professionals who have to make it happen! The onus is on them to learn new skills in order to support contemporary applications and maintain or upgrade their performance when required. Keeping up to date with the latest technology has never been so poignant for IT professionals. If there's a demand from commercial settings to harness the latest things, then there's a natural calling for people to install, maintain and enhance them.

Scavenger hunts just got significantly more tactical with Descartes Labs' new GeoVisual Search. Finding shipping containers, runways and even parking lots on a global scale is no problem with the free tool made available today. Descartes Labs is a geospatial analytics startup based in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The company specializes in analyzing satellite imagery and other global data with machine learning to power predictive analytics for agriculture and other key industries. Users can scour the earth's surface by placing a provided bounding box around any object they would like to search for.

From being the preserve of sci-fi movies, artificial intelligence has suddenly burst through into the mainstream. Once a subject only discussed in universities or by data scientists, artificial intelligence has become the'must-have' of 2017, with companies across all sectors investigating how it can be incorporated into their business models. The advertising industry, which has long prided itself on being agile and forward thinking, is one of the first sectors to bring AI into its product offerings. The amount of data available to those working in digital advertising – particularly mobile advertising – is what gives AI so much potential in this area. Artificial intelligence thrives from large amounts of data, without data it cannot build models or test its assumptions.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the NHS budget will need to increase by £88billion over the next 50 years if it is to keep pace with the rising demand for healthcare in the UK. But with the 2017 Budget showcasing a massive leaning towards building up its Brexit reserves and allocating a mere £100 million for 100 onsite GP treatment centres in A&Es across England, the NHS is justifiably bracing itself for a painful future. With £20billion worth of cuts scheduled by 2020, combined with fierce warnings that the UK's health services are on the edge of an unprecedented crisis, the urgent call for solutions to be brought to the healthcare table has incontrovertibly intensified. With deep cuts looming, it's time to properly consider how Artificial Intelligence can answer this call and shed light on how its technologies could provide the healthcare industry with some much-needed respite and real solutions to meet the ever spiralling rise in demand for healthcare. The issue of voluminous data that draws relentlessly on healthcare professionals' resources is something that could benefit significantly from the implementation of an AI-based system.

Using a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis, Google has updated its system to detect user habits without dedicated interaction. When you arrive on a web page, the controls should disappear and serve the relevant content. However, if you do trip Google's risk analysis algorithms, you may need to quickly solve one of the search giant's puzzles. While the new system is invisible, it will still consider variables like your IP address and the movements of your mouse. Google says its technology will "actively consider a user's engagement with the CAPTCHA -- before, during, and after -- to determine whether that user is a human."